When he's not testifying, he'd rather not be there at the courthouse if he can avoid it. He thinks he will either cause a riot or be traumatised all over again by the details of the police testimony, or worse, be peppered with obnoxious comments by the hate-mongers roosting outside the Yolo County courthouse, those who support and condone what Lydia, Ray and Cantrell have done. Asinine as it sounds, it looks even worse. Demonstrators from various churches and groups can be heard shouting their hate-filled slogans, holding up signs saying the same. "God created AIDS to kill faggots!" "Death to faggots!" and of course, "The BIBLE says to put them to death!" Rage boils my blood as I think of Jamie, as I think of how these insane, evil idiots believe Ray and the others were right!
He stays with Mom, Aunt Sharon and Natalie at Mom's house, and spends all of his time cooking wonderful meals and desserts for all of us, and cleaning and scrubbing the house over and over, to thank all of us for being there for him.
But he does show up the day the jury returns with a "Guilty" verdict for all three of the kidnappers. I've asked to speak to the court, all my thoughts handwritten on a wrinkled page from a notebook of lined yellow paper, my hands trembling and staining the sheet with sweat:
"I met Jamie sixteen, almost seventeen years ago. We were in high school. It was on a Sunday in church. I wasn't much on church. I would rather be anywhere else, even having a root canal at the dentist's." The court laughs quietly. "The pastor asked everybody to hold hands together while we had prayer. Jamie was holding my right hand. I looked over at him, and there was just... something so familiar about him. Not long later, I began to remember who he was. He was the little boy I talked to in line at a grocery store when I was no more than four years old. I know that's hard to believe, but it's true. And now Jamie remembers that day too. I loved him and wanted to be his friend forever, but I didn't think I'd ever see him again. The supermarket was in Sacramento, and I lived in Sommerville. It's like hoping to run into the same person twice in Los Angeles or New York. But we met again in high school.
"I don't want to talk about how Jamie came to live in Sommerville. It's a very sad story, but what matters is, he was adopted by a very kind gentleman named Lloyd Tafford, an officer of the Sommerville police. He began high school when I was a senior, and that's how we met again. It really happened, and it shows me how God, or fate, or whatever, works.
"This is not the first time Jamie has been beaten because of who he is. It's not even the second. It's the third."
The jury shakes their heads, not having been privy to that knowledge. It was not allowed during the trial because it was "irrelevant". That's what the pond-scum defence lawyers thought, anyway.
"I was in love with him, but for reasons you can probably guess, I was afraid. I didn't have the courage I needed to be with Jamie, so I ran away. I couldn't face who I was—who I am. I deserted him and ran away from home, and I stayed away for sixteen years. Sixteen years squandered. I was a coward, simple and plain."
I'm not afraid to admit it now, because my cowardice is a thing of the past. I look outside now, and separated by a human buffer of the Davis Police are our supporters, local chapters of groups like GLAAD, PFLAG and the Human Rights Campaign. They are using bible scripture too. Their signs say, "God said thou shalt not judge", "God said thou shalt not kill", "Love thy neighbour as thyself", and the Golden Rule, "Do unto others...".
They're giving me strength. I'm feeling the strength in their numbers. I feel empowered. I feel alive. I feel proudly gay today. When I have a moment, I'm going to take Jamie, Mom, and Stace out there, and we're gonna let them know that we are so grateful for what they're doing.
"In December," I continue, my hand more steady around the yellow paper I'm clutching, "My mother fell and broke her pelvis and had to be hospitalised. It's how I met Jamie again. For weeks he took care of Mom and I fell in love with him all over again." My voice begins to catch. "No. I had never stopped loving him. I had never stopped thinking of him, all the time I was gone from home.
"We spent about a week—just a few days—together. We were happy. We were so happy, and it was like, this is meant to be. And then, they..." I point at Lydia, glaring at me through obsidian eyes, Ray sitting silent and expressionless and Cantrell, forever the ambiguous one, eyes flitting from me to the jury. "They grabbed him in his own front yard, tied him up, threw him into the trunk of his car, drove him out to an orchard on a dirt road, beat him with a broken towel rod, and left him to die.
"Let me tell you, really, who Jamie is," I sob, my eyes never leaving the three accused. "Because you haven't heard it yet, really. Jamie is absolutely the last, the very last person on this planet, who deserved to have that done to him! I'm not going to go into detail—I keep arguing with myself about whether or not to tell you what this young man has lived through, but you need to know who he is. Forgive me," I say softly to Jamie, who is sitting in the back between Mom and Stacy. "When he was little, his parents abused him. You don't need to know the details, and I'm sure some of you know already. They abused and starved him, for seven years. Imagine. Seven years, from the time he was six till the time he was thirteen, seven years, of abuse, of starvation, of not even being let out of his room to go anywhere. They locked him in his room!
"Nobody knew he was alone," I shudder, vicariously feeling that for the first time. "He was alone, crying, begging, praying for someone to help him. None of us can begin to imagine what he went through, how he lost any hope for escape or rescue.
"Finally, somebody called the police. And Jamie survived. Officer Tafford rescued Jamie and adopted him.
"Jamie is a survivor. He's the strongest person I've ever met. He has to be, to put up with this kind of crap," I flick my hand at the defendants. "The only—the only consolation I have right now is that Jamie's attackers are going to be punished.
"A survivor. But that's not all Jamie is," I continue. "He's smart, funny, gentle, kind, loving. He loves to sing, but when this happened, he lost his voice. He loves to cook. He loves to take care of sick people. He loves cats. And he loves me. We love each other. He's my lover and the best friend I've ever had. We could have been together, all these years, but because certain people think that he and I are evil, that our love is evil, we've had to hide our feelings, deny our feelings. It isn't fair. It isn't right. I'll tell you something: evil is sitting right over there at that table. And they've put us through hell...
"And those picketers outside with their ugly signs saying, 'God kills fags'. How dare they think that kidnapping Jamie, beating him, and leaving him to freeze and bleed to death pleases God?! How can they have the gall to profess to be Christians? What sort of God do they worship anyway? Sounds to me like they worship Satan, not God!
"Look at those other signs out there. The God we know is about love, not hate. There were a few times when Jamie struggled, as I used to struggle, with whether or not our love angered God, and I am the one who reassured him that if it is God's will that we live alone and miserable and unhappy, that we deny the fact that we are soulmates, just because we're both men, then He isn't a God I care to worship.
"But I know better. I love God. And I believe God loves me, a lot! God made Jamie for me and gave him to me. God orchestrated everything, right down to how we met each other.
"I've spent much of my life believing that this world is a cold, dark, cruel and evil place. That's one of the hazards of my side profession, working with homeless and unwanted animals in shelters. It gets to me so much sometimes that I have to take breaks from working with them. It seems endless sometimes, the helplessness and hopelessness I've felt as I've written articles about animals who are homeless, beaten, stomped on by the world.
"The world is cold, and cruel, and evil, but when Jamie looks at me, when he touches me, or kisses me..." (I don't care what anyone thinks of my out-loud love for him.) "...when he simply talks to me, I know there is goodness and love in this world. I know it, and I know there is a God, because I see Him or Her in Jamie. I was
a lonely child, and I was an even lonelier adult. Except when Jamie was there. I've never been lonely with him near me.
"Jamie is a person, a human being. He's somebody's son, somebody's brother, somebody's husband. He is my family, and my mother can say the same. He's her son. Try to imagine your own child, your own brother, your own husband or wife in Jamie's place. Don't insult Jamie by giving these murderers, because that's what they are, even if they failed to kill him, anything less than the harshest sentence allowable."
When we exit the courthouse, Jamie hugs me and croaks, "Thank you."
"I didn't say too much?"
"No," he whispers. "I loved what you said."
I curve my arm around him, shielding him from the surging reporters thrusting their microphones into his face, asking ridiculous questions. Mom and Stacy cover us from the front and back, screaming, "Let us through! We're done!"
The rallies of hatred with their heinous signs and venomous shouts don't escape Jamie. One deep, harsh scream rings out, "God spared you so you can repent of your filthy sins, you sodomite!" I hold him closer to me, eyes closed tight as I fight to hold down the volcano of rage, and my tears of fury and despair roll down.
But I hear Jamie say, in his croaking frog's voice, in audible, musical notes I've never before heard, "Look, Tammy!" He points to our supporters, who are shouting, "God hates hate!" and proudly displaying their rainbow-coloured signs. The spirit of love in this side of the courthouse crowd banishes my fear and fury as Jamie walks over to them, reaches out to them, shakes outstretched hands.
For a long time, they talk to him, and to us. Mom, Stacy and I introduce ourselves. Their hands clasp around mine and I feel more of my strength returning. I see tears in their eyes as people gently push back Jamie's hair and look at his healed scar. He hugs some of them. They call him a hero, and he says, "No, those men who called 9-1-1 and stayed with me, the police, the paramedics... they're the heroes. And this guy right here..." He grabs me. "He's a hero. He prayed for me to survive."
They surround us almost worshipfully, their eyes glistening as Jamie introduces his family. I'm his husband, Mom is his "Ma", Stacy's his sister.
By the time we get into our car and ride away, we've each gotten a long list of names, numbers and invitations to meetings and functions, all within driving distance.
We return home, to a life that mirrors the life before the attack.
Except that the phone rings several times a day with callers asking how Jamie is doing, and now and then, a caller who has nothing better to do than condemn us and call us hellbound faggots.
Except that Jamie is mute most of the time, with a fading scar above his right eye and a little gold band around his left ring finger that says, deep inside, in tiny, engraved fancy script:
I've loved you almost all your life, and I'll love you for the rest of your life and beyond. Your husband, Tammy.
We've changed so much, but at the same time, we haven't changed all that much. We're like an old couple. After we come in from work, we spend our evenings cuddling in front of the TV, wrapped in Lloyd's old quilt, the cats all around us, Mom sometimes snoring in one of the beige recliners, Stacy stretched out on the other. Sometimes we leave them, to be alone in our room. Sometimes we just sit there, watching really old shows on Antenna TV and MeTV. Stacy thinks we're ridiculous. She'd rather be watching CSI or NCIS or Law & Order LA or something made in the twenty-first century. Nope, Jamie has really been enjoying black and white episodes of Bachelor Father and Dennis The Menace while I've been into Good Times, Sanford & Son and The Jeffersons. Since Mom likes old stuff too (her favourites are Maude, Three's Company and Married, With Children), it's three against one.
In July, the jury gives Lydia, Ray and Cantrell each a sentence of twenty-five to life. Lydia will be going to the women's facility in Chino. Ray will be incarcerated up in Susanville and won't be eligible for parole until 2023. Cantrell will serve time in Corcoran, but his lawyer has appealed his sentence, saying that since he didn't swing the towel bar, he shouldn't be treated "so unsympathetically". The D.A. reports that the judge told Cantrell that most of his sentence is based on his being a pornography touting pervert. Eh! Neither Jamie nor I care much at this point. Even if Cantrell ends up getting a lesser term in prison, we won't worry. We'll be long gone.
Yes, we're leaving. We're not sure when, but soon. Someone drives by a week after the sentencing, and shoots through our living room window. A couple of days later, I find hate mail in our box, someone threatening to kill our cats. I keep all seven of them inside for the next couple of weeks. When I tell Jamie why I don't want them outside, he's mad. You should have told me!
"I didn't want to upset you."
I'm not a baby!
I respond quietly and firmly. "No, but you've been through enough."
As boring as the snowless California winters are, they're preferable to the summers. It's been so muggy and sticky lately that I feel like I need to shower five minutes after I've taken one. Thank God Jamie has central air rather than a swamper.
But the weather's different one evening in late July. Jamie and I fall asleep on our couch watching one of our old VHS tapes, relieved by a pleasant San Joaquin Delta breeze coming from the south, wafting through the locked screen door. During The Jack Benny Show, Gisele MacKenzie begins to sing, "Smile, though your heart is breaking..."
In his sleep, Jamie begins to sing, "Smile..." Not in the deep, croaking, broken voice he's been using lately, but in his real voice, the one he lost seven months ago. "Smile, though your heart is breaking... smile... smile..."
"Baby, wake up," I whisper to him. "You're singing."
"Hmmm?" he asks sleepily.
"You're singing. You're singing, Jamie!"
"I'm singing?" He blinks slowly. "I was dreaming of Gisele MacKenzie, that we were watching her on Jack Benny."
"We were. You were singing in your sleep!" I can't stop the tears. His voice is back. For real. I know it. It's back!
"I was getting used to talking like Rochester," Jamie says.
I blubber, "I missed you so much, Jamie. I feel like you're really home now, like you're really back. I know I should have been grateful that you lived through what they did, and I was—I am—but I missed your voice so much!"
"Tammy?"
"What?"
"Please, let's have Ma move in with us. Ask her if she wants to. She'll say yes. She needs us. I love her. She and Lloyd should have been married. They would have been perfect together. The perfect parents..."
"What?" I laugh.
"They would have."
"I have absolutely no desire to be your brother," I cackle.
"When we move to the coast, we have to take her with us," says Jamie.
It bubbles out of me. "Jamie, why don't we move there now? Let's take Mom and the kids and just go! Let's just move to our cottage! What are we waiting for?!"
His eyes are shining. "And Tammy?"
"Yeah?"
"Can we get married again?"
I cup his chin. "You want to get married again?"
"Yes," he cries, tears beginning to shimmer. "I want to say my vows to you."
"Oh, Baby," I murmur, "You did perfect that day."
"No," he insists. "I want to do it right. I want to say them. It doesn't have to be formal. We can do it at the coast, after we move, on the beach, with just you, me, Ma and Stacy. We don't need a judge or anything. I just want to say them to you. I need to say them to you. I mean it, Tammy. I'm serious. Please, let's please get married again."
"Okay," I smile. "Let's do it."
forty-six:
jamie
(life goes on...)
We put Lloyd's and Ma's houses up for sale, and in the autumn following the trial and convictions of Lydia Rocha, Ray Battle and Steven Cantrell, we move to the coast, to Fort Bragg, where my beloved Lloyd's ashes were scattered. We all go, Tammy, me, Ma, her cat Tillie, and our seven kids, Ginger, Sam, Misty, Tigger, Wonka, Pepper and Teddy.
>
We find the sweetest old farmhouse, painted a soft grey-blue with a strange but not unpleasant dark coral trim, four bedrooms and two bathrooms, sitting on nearly twelve acres of gentle, rolling hills covered in waving golden grass. It's everything I imagined and more. Everything is delightfully old. The kitchen has one of those old-fashioned sinks that you have to bend down to get to. The hardwood floor is beautiful and shiny. Even the doorknobs are old, round, with old-fashioned key locks that require skeleton keys. It sits about half a mile from where the water crashes against the edge of California.
A few days after we're settled in, Stacy comes up to visit, along with Tammy's Aunt Sharon and cousin Natalie.
They like this town. My sister hasn't been here ten minutes when she announces she's moving here too. Aunt Sharon and Natalie say they might just do likewise. I love it.
I'm not sure if Tammy or Ma has ever really talked with Sharon about what her husband did, but Sharon's a lot nicer to everyone than she was when I first met her. I wonder if her daughter has discussed Uncle Price with her. They both seem lonely.
"Everyone's lonely to you!" teases Tammy. "You'd love it if the Blooms and Old Mrs. Cooke came up here, wouldn't you?"
"I'd probably love it, yeah," I admit.
So Tammy and Ma urge Sharon and Natalie to join us. They're overjoyed, all huge smiles, eagerly gabbing and making plans, and under that thrill, I can see the exhaustion in the dark circles under their eyes, the gladness that Price is pretty much out of all our lives. He's staying in Sacramento forever, and we are going to be here on the coast, a family. I can feel the same "new lease on life" euphoria in Sharon and Natalie that I had when Lloyd gave me his heart and home, and again when Tammy came home to me.
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